Featured class: Programming in PHP

Programming in PHP is a video lecture based course by URedditor recck whose goal is to introduce new programmers to the PHP programming language. In the teacher’s own words:

“In this course I would be developing an easy to follow syllabus starting off with the bare essentials, gradually working our way up to Object Oriented Programming (OOP) in PHP and eventually developing our first application that users can interact with.”

In each lesson, recck makes available a video lecture from his YouTube channel and a discussion thread in his Google Group, along with supplementary materials that vary from lecture notes to code samples to quizzes. Furthermore he encourages students to submit code for feedback, as well as questions in general.

As mentioned above, recck’s class is spread over a number of platforms: YouTube, Google Groups, UReddit, GitHub, and other services. This fragments discussion and lowers user engagement. In an ideal situation, all the class materials could be hosted (or at least organized) in one place, along with a centralized area for discussion.

The UReddit team is working on a platform for open online education that offers just that combination by giving hosting space, course management software, and centralized discussion. We are trying to get our prototype of this platform online, but we need support to get it into public beta. If you are interested in supporting our efforts and helping further the efforts to perfect online education, we invite you to visit our Kickstarter page.